Cultural events, places and people in the Little Rock area

Falling Off a Tin Roof on Tuesday

At “Tales from the South” the first Tuesday of the month means “Tin Roof Project.”

This month features Monica Staggs, who grew up in North Little Rock.

As she describes her childhood, she was a tomboy practicing how to rouchambeau boys on the playground and playing Charlie’s Angels in the woods behind her house. During her senior year at college, Monica got to work on a film that came to Little Rock called Shelter where she was the stand in for the lead actress as well as landing a small part. She rode passenger as a car ran off an embankment, crashing through trees before and stopping just before a lake.

Getting a taste for the thrill of the film business, three weeks later, Monica flew to L.A. for the first time and worked on her second film. She fell in love with Los Angeles and everything about it. As soon as she returned to Arkansas she announced she was moving to L.A. and two weeks later she did on the plane, not knowing a soul, with three large duffle bags, a fork, a knife and a bath towel.

After moving to L.A., within three weeks she was lucky enough to land her third film. She began training in other areas of stunt work such as stunt driving, martial arts, stunt fights, and boxing. She has spent the last 20 years working in L.A.

Monica has done stunt work on more than one hundred film and television productions, including Kill Bill 2, Crash, The Italian Job, Bewitched, Starship Troopers II, Charlie’s Angels, Transformers, and many, many more. She has won numerous awards and accolades for her stunt work, and at the 2005 MTV Movie Awards she was brought to the stage by Quentin Tarantino to share the award for Best Fight in Kill Bill 2. She is a board member of the Stuntwomen’s Association.

Monica still lives in L.A. where she writes sketch comedy and loves to play Texas Hold-Em, enters tournaments regularly and hosts home games where she attempts to take money from her fellow stunt peers. Her other pastimes include watching “South Park,” “Reno 911” and any and all horror movies.

Before her talk, music will be provided by The Salty Dogs and blues guitarist Mark Simpson. To reserve a ticket go to www.talesfromthesouth.com.